RIP: Charles Hamm, musicologist and author

Charles Hamm, who helped establish the field of American popular music history with two books that have become standard texts, died on Oct. 16 in Lebanon, N. H. He was 86.

The cause was pneumonia, his son Stuart said.

After beginning his career as a specialist in Renaissance music, Mr. Hamm became frustrated with the condescension of his fellow musicologists toward contemporary popular music. He began to write and lecture on the subject.

“There was no literature in my own discipline to guide me,” he later recalled in “Putting Popular Music in Its Place,” a 1995 collection of his essays. “My first attempts were shots in the dark, guided only by the germ of a conviction that popular music should be approached as a complex field encompassing composers, performers, audiences, the music industry, the media and the state.”

So. Your Tumblr’s been looking pretty lame these days. You can’t find any new videos of cats stuck in boxes or photos of stylish people on city streets. What the fuck else can you post? You already took a picture of that pasta you made for dinner and the Christmas lights you strung around your room two months early.

WAIT. How about one of the new Captain Ahab GIFs? Animated representations of a techno-punk duo! Download them here! Cool! Or better yet, how about their new video for “Girls Gone Wild,” directed by Patrick Kennelly? The song isn’t new at all — it’s actually about six years old — which makes the whole thing sort of vintage, right? Or, how about getting the hell off of the internet and going to one of Captain Ahab’s upcoming shows?

Over the course of his 52 years, Morrissey has been many things: Reuniter of the New York Dolls, Sad Person Royalty, Subject of FBI Investigation After Anti-Bush Comments. But there is one thing Steven Patrick Morrissey wants you to know that he is not: a racist. For many years, the Smiths frontman has been a professional courter of controversy, making seemingly off-the-cuff comments that run the gamut from the offensive to the misconstrued and are tirelessly snapped up by journalists looking for a juicy lede. But now one magazine in particular has roused the jangly sadman’s ire, and Morrissey’s not gonna take it.

Perhaps you remember that infamous 2007 NME interview where Morrissey made certain comments about the British identity and culture fading as a result of immigration. Or perhaps you don’t want to remember — after all, these are just the sort of remarks that Morrissey fans try to forget/rationalize away and journalists love to run away with. Whatever he might have meant at the time, the legend steadfastly denies that his comments are indicative of racial prejudice. And indeed, in a nice bit of poetic justice/damage control, when NME pulled its sponsorship from London’s Love Music Hate Racism concert in 2008 and the famed celebration of all things harmonious teetered on the brink of financial collapse, Moz personally ponied up £75,000 to keep the event going.

But still the rumors swirl. So Morrissey took a libel case to the courts this month. While Moz maintains that NME twisted his words to make him look like a racist jerkoff, the magazine maintains that the case should be thrown out, due to the lengthy period of time between the inflammatory article’s publication and the court case. According to The Quietus, Mr. Justice Tugendhat of England’s high court wrote, “Overall, in my judgment a proper balance between the Article 10 right of freedom of expression of [NME magazine] and Mr Morrissey’s right to the protection of his individual reputation requires, in the circumstances of this case, that the action be permitted to proceed.” So, in Moz vs. NME Round 34 (or whatever this is), it looks like this point goes to the erstwhile Smiths frontman. Whether Morrissey or NME wins the final challenge, however, remains to be seen. The case will go to trial in 2012.

After a 10-year hiatus from releasing new music, Markus Popp returned with his expansive double album O (TMT Review) in 2010; 2011 appears to be no less prolific for Popp’s Oval. FACT reports that Popp will release a CD/DVD combo called OvalDNA on November 25 on Shitkatapult that will make glitch fetishists cream their pants with excitement.

The CD will feature 13 rare Oval tracks spanning his 20-plus-year career as well as 12 previously unreleased tracks. The DVD will include an additional 10 songs, a music video for the track “Glass UFO,” and an Oval documentary. If that wasn’t enough, the whole package will also include a 20-page booklet assembled by Popp and Wire contributor David Toop, plus 2,000 AIFF sound files from the Oval vaults. Listeners are encouraged to use the source material as they choose.

Popp is calling the massive release an “open source manifesto.” Hopefully fans will take Popp’s “DNA” and create new songs from the genetic material used to produce Oval’s catalog thus far. Then maybe Oval will take those songs and remix them until a mutant race of unstoppable glitch monsters emerges. It could happen! Who does Popp think he is, God? Call your senators today and demand that these bizarre practices be outlawed before it’s too late! Or just support Oval’s ballsy move by snatching up a copy of the package next month and start making some music!

So blah: another day, another headline-making collaboration between Radiohead top-brass Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood and hip-hop mask-aficionado DOOM. Remember a little year called 2009, in which Yorke remixed the DOOM track “Gazzillion Ear”? And it sounded all glitchy and spacey and Yorkey?? And then back in March, remember when this shit happened? Me too! God, I’m just so NOSTALGIC for 2009-through-spring 2011. I’m really hoping someone makes some music about that time period soon.

Well anyway, according to the ‘Fork, the coolest dudes in the universe are up to their usual wacky hi-jinx and are once again working together on a track for an upcoming Lex Records compilation in celebration of the label’s 10-year anniversary. The track has no title at the moment, but the compilation itself is called Complex, and it will also feature tracks from from Gruff Rhys and Boom Bip’s Neon Neon project, Boom Bip solo, Doseone and Fog’s Crook&Flail project, any many more. Like all classic albums, it’ll be released digitally on a one-track-per-week basis, culminating in a mid-Jaunary physical release on something called “picture disc vinyl.” Get your 3D glasses all charged up.

The good news for 80s fans who love corny sexual metaphors is that apparently “Wild Thing” rapper Tone Lōc is still around and performing. The bad news is he made headlines last week on account of a seizure, supposedly onstage, during a performance in Atlanta, Georgia on October 15.

Tone Lōc, 45, whose real name is Anthony Terrell Smith, was taken to a nearby hospital where he was given an IV and eventually released. Concert-goers said that the rapper had the fit on stage; however, Terrell’s manager told TMZ he was merely suffering from exhaustion after a grueling tour schedule.

Tone Lōc apparently has a history of seizures, having collapsed onstage once before in 2009, and suffering another seizure just last year, while driving in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, after the news of Tone Lōc’s collapse on stage broke, sales of Funky Cold Medina rose 30%. (Okay, we’re just kidding. We still have no idea what that is, but it’s fun to say.)